Scar Tissue
by karaokegal
Summary: House has a question. Wilson wants some answers. HW with HChase if you squint. Previously posted at LJ. Ficlet inspired by my bazillionth viewing of Love Hurts.


Title: Scar Tissue

Fandom: House MD

Pairing: House/Wilson (and some House/Chase depending on your slash glasses prescription)

Wordcount: 743

Warnings: Spoilers for Love Hurts. References to burning.

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"Dr. Chase, a moment of your time."

Did House imitate his father on purpose or was that just his imagination? Chase had recently begun to feel that he was out of the line of fire, if only because House was now more interested in sparring with his ex than torturing his employees.

"You lied."

"About what?"

"The girl who liked to be burned."

Why the hell were they back to that? Harvey was long diagnosed, treated and gone. Annette lingered only as a perfumed shadow in Chase's memory.

"I told you…"

"And you lied. There was no girl. I doubt you've ever dated any girl, except the kind who really needs a date to the prom so no one will know she's in love with a cheerleader. You couldn't bully Harvey into signing a waiver for surgery. No one would call your number to wield the whip. The only one getting burned was you."

Chase looked away from the blaze of House's eyes, but held his ground. He managed not to bite on his lower lip, and kept his hands in back of him where House wouldn't see the fingernails digging into his palm.

"Obviously I missed the part where this became relevant or any of your damn business."

"I didn't say it was either. It's interesting though."

"Why?"

"Because I'm curious about how the body and the brain work together. Pain and pleasure. I want to know details. Matches or lighters? Arms or legs? I assume you were trying to unload some of that "I couldn't save my drunken mommy" guilt, plus whatever mishegas the original Men In Black gave you as a parting gift when you left the seminary. I want to know if it worked?"

"Look House. It was something that I did a few times. A phase, you know? What ever penance you still think I owe for Vogler or anything else, I'm certainly not going to let you…"

It was only then that Chase noticed his boss kneading the thigh of his bad leg with a familiar grimace.

"I wasn't talking about you."

The affair was still in that stage where Wilson could spend hours discovering his lover's body. He'd always found House's hands attractive from a purely esthetic point of view and now they'd become a focus of erotic fascination as well.

The two of them were lying in bed enjoying the quiet left behind. Wilson was congratulating himself for leaving House spent into silence. He took the opportunity to trace the outline of House's left hand, dipping into the spaces between the fingers and sliding back up to the tips, when he found the small patch of skin on the back of House's left hand with a lighter color and different texture than the rest.

"What is this?" he asked, running his index finger over the spot, verifying that it was slightly raised from the rest of the skin. Clearly scar tissue. Healed. Possibly imperceptible to anyone but a palm-reader or a concerned lover. It was the same hand that House had broken to blot out the pain of detoxing, but that bruise had healed. This one seemed more recent.

Wilson peered at the skin again, trying to make out the shape. It bifurcated, as if someone had heated a piece of metal, something like tweezers, and applied it to House's flesh. Deliberately.

"Greg…what the hell happened?"

He could see House debating some glib lie, while his own heart pounded. A remark came back to him. Gossip that House had shared when he was diagnosing Harvey Park. Something about…

"Chase…?" he asked with a tide of anger and protectiveness rising in his chest.

"Did what I told him to."

"For gods sake…why?"

"It was an…experiment."

Wilson tried to breathe. He reminded himself that House had never been very good at taking care of himself. That's why he was here. To make sure that House had more than peanut butter in the fridge and better methods of pain control than self-abuse.

House had retrieved his hand and was sitting up in bed examining the scar as if seeing it for the first time.

"Did it work?"

The pause while House considered the question made Wilson clench with apprehension. He knew what House was capable of. His breath didn't come back until House had pulled him into a tight embrace, and was about to take it away again with a long lingering kiss.

"Not as well as this."


End file.
